On the inside
by planet p
Summary: AU; when and why does Alex come to the Center?


**On the inside** by planet p

**Disclaimer** I don't own _the Pretender_ or any of its characters.

* * *

On the screen, we see a room. In the room, there is a table and two chairs, and nothing else – except for a man, dressed in a suit, and a small child. We think that the child might be three or four years old.

On the screen, there is a caption. We read the caption:

_For Center Use Only – Alex_

_February 3, 1957_

Which tells us the date, and the time of year. It is February, it will be cold outside; it's winter. Is it cold inside the room, too? We have no way of knowing.

We learn that one of the two people is named Alex, though we think that it might be the child, rather than the man, and that the man was _only_ there to talk to the child, maybe.

We wonder why the child is locked away on his own, in an almost empty room, or why the man has been sent to talk to him. Who sent the man? What does 'For Center Use Only' mean? Is the man from the Center for Disease Control?

We give our questions a rest as we see that the man is about to start his, and peer further into the screen, eyes squinted in concentration.

Just for a moment, we wonder if the child is scared. If he knows the man?

* * *

The man starts with a seemingly normal question, but that, in this setting, seems strange to us, and – maybe – threatening… "What do you want to be when you grow up?" Do we worry a little for the child, as we await his answer? Maybe.

The child's answer comes a moment later. "A cowboy!" We want to laugh at his answer, except we do not because we are thinking about the way that he said it, we are thinking about the authority with which he spoke, as though there could be no other possible answer, and he knows it. We think about the way he said it, too, about the voice he said it in, with no emotion. We start to think that he isn't scared of the man, in actual fact, and we wonder if maybe _the man_ should be scared of him.

"Do you know why you're here?" the man asks, and we are pulled from our thoughts to ponder this question, and what the child's answer might be. We want to know the answer too.

"Lacey has gone away to Heaven," the child answers, matter-of-fact.

We are thinking the same thing as the man when he asks, "Who is Lacey?" We might have mouthed his words, but our attention is wholly on the screen.

"My sister," is the reply.

We wonder how the child's sister died, and if she is older or younger than the child on the screen in front of us. Our first question, the man once again echoes, "How did your sister go to Heaven?" How does he do that? we wonder. It is eerie how he seems to know what we're thinking, though we're watching surveillance footage from the _past_. Maybe it's us, we think, who seem to know what he's thinking. Maybe it's only because we're following the conversation so closely, maybe that's the sort of questions that are asked, in these instances.

The child answers without hesitation, but with a slow pause, as though to keep some decorum, at least. "I made her fall out of a window. I pushed her." At this proclamation, we feel suddenly frightened. We tell ourselves that they were just playing, and that the child didn't know that he was doing anything wrong when he pushed his sister, but there is something in his steady gaze, in the steady, sure way he says things, that tries to convince us otherwise. We push it away. We admonish ourselves for our thoughts, _Of course he never meant to hurt his sister!_

The man is asking another question. "Why did you do that? Was it because you hated her?" We wait for the answer, and try to tell ourselves that the quickening thud of our heart is normal.

The child begins to talk in another language; we do not know what language – it is not English – but even if we'd known what language it was – it is Russian – we still can't have known what was said. If we had known Russian, we would have known that he replied "I loved her." Then he is talking in English, as though he knows that the man cannot speak Russian, either, like us, and maybe he is pleased by this fact, quietly, but unwilling to risk pushing any further. What would happen then? we wonder, as the child continues to talk. He is explaining why he pushed his sister out of the window, but there is a lack of something in his voice that we know should be there, though we don't know what _it_, specifically, is. "She made me upset, and I got mad and I pushed her. I knew what I was doing, I knew she would fall out of the window. I just did not know she would die. I thought she would get hurt, but then she would be fine. I thought I would show her how it felt when she said mean things to me."

We stare at the screen, aghast, and now we know that the quick thudding of our heart is not normal. We hope that the man does not ask any more questions, but, this time, he ignores our thoughts.

"But she died?" he asks.

We don't want to hear the child's sure, clear pronunciation as he talks, slower than ours, but suddenly too understandable. "She has gone to Heaven. She is an angel."

* * *

"Do you think you were sent away because Lacey died, or because of why she died?" the man is asking now. We do not want to listen, but we suddenly feel as though we _have_ to.

"Because I killed her," the child answers with complete certainty. "Because I am a bad person. Because I might hurt someone else. Because she was my sister, but I did not care. Someone like that is dangerous. They should not be with the other people. They should be somewhere else. Where they cannot hurt any more people, or make them like them."

A child at the age that the child in front of us should not think such things, we think. We're frightened, now. The child on the screen in front of us is so certain, and the certainty scares us. A child like that should not think with a sense of rational that an adult does, but this one has; does.

The man's voice is no different, but _we_ _sense_ something different as we watch, and listen to his next question. "Do you want to get better?" A voice from outside of the room startles us, though it is not outside of the room we are in, but the room the man is in, on the screen. The man is told to ask another question.

The child looks upset suddenly, as he thinks about his answer. He is upset that he will not be able to voice his answer, we think.

The man presses on with the next question; a different question this time.

* * *

_Thanks for reading, despite lameness._


End file.
